Xog Ogaal

Jets screamed in low over the Libyan capital in the early hours of the morning, carrying out an unusually heavy bombardment over roughly three hours.

NATO struck at least four sites in Tripoli, setting off crackling explosions that thundered through the city overnight.

One strike hit a building that locals said was used by a military intelligence agency.

Another targeted a government building that officials said was sometimes used by parliament members.

It was not immediately clear what the other two strikes hit, but one of them sent plumes of smoke that appeared to come from the sprawling compound housing members of Gaddadfi's family, the Associated Press reported.

A NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the alliance could not comment immediately on today's strikes in Tripoli but hoped to say something at a news conference later in the day.

The blasts came after NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said time was running out for Libyan leader Gaddafi.

He said Gaddafi "should realise sooner rather than later that there's no future for him or his regime" and would ultimately lose his decades-old grip on power given the "wind of change" sweeping the Arab world, the death of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and mounting pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan.

NATO clarified that its bombing campaign was not specifically targeting Gaddafi.

She said the bombing raid in Tripoli was part of the alliance's strategy of destroying Gaddafi's military machine as long as it threatened civilians, not an escalation of the campaign.

"We continue with the same strategy: to reduce the Gaddafi regime's capacity to hit civilians as much as possible," Romero said.

NATO will "continue to attack Libyan command and control centres as well as all facilities that can be used by the Gaddafi army," she said.

The Tripoli bombing came just hours after heavy fighting was on reported on Monday on the eastern front, south of Ajdabiya, a rebel-held town about 150 kilometres south of Benghazi, the rebel headquarters in the east.

Also on Monday, Gaddafi's forces shelled a northern Misrata neighbourhood where many families from the besieged city centre have fled to, said Abdel Salam, who identified himself as a resident-turned-fighter.

He said NATO airstrikes hit targets on the city's southern edges, one of the areas where government forces had been concentrated after rebels pushed them back.

The fighting was threatening the port area, the city's only lifeline, preventing some aid ships from docking, Abdel Salam said.

However, Agence France-Presse reported that insurgents fighting to oust Gaddafi said they had driven his forces back from around the rebel-held city and were poised to make another thrust.

After heavy clashes, the rebels controlled a stretch of coastal road west of Misrata, Libya's third city which Gaddafi's forces have besieged for more than two months, forcing thousands to flee.

Fighting has been heaviest in and around Misrata, a make-or-break city in the Libyan conflict about 200 kilometres east of the capital.

A ship carrying medical supplies and baby food was able to dock in Misrata yesterday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

It was the first ship to arrive since Wednesday, when Gaddafi's forces fired a barrage of rockets into the port as the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) was evacuating nearly 1000 people, mainly African migrant workers.

Meanwhile, the IOM said it had growing accounts from refugees arriving in Italy indicating an overloaded boat carrying up to 600 people capsized off the Libyan coast on Friday.

On Sunday, Italian coast guards and fisherman saved all 528 refugees from Libya after their boat hit rocks off the island of Lampedusa in an operation a rescuer described as a "miracle."

Among the refugees were 24 pregnant women.

The United Nations said yesterday that nearly 750,000 people have fled Libya since Gaddafi's forces launched an offensive against anti-government demonstrators.

"The conflict, the breakdown of state infrastructure and shortages of cash and fuel are causing serious problems to the population of Libya," Valerie Amos, UN chief humanitarian coordinator, told the UN Security Council.

"Widespread shortages are paralysing the country in ways which will impact gravely on the general population in the months ahead, particularly for the poorest and the most vulnerable," Amos told ambassadors from the 15-nation council.

The UN refugee agency, meanwhile, appealed to European countries to step up efforts to rescue people fleeing Libya in overloaded boats.

A spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Melissa Fleming, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that "any boat that is leaving Libya should be considered, at first glance, as a boat in need of assistance".

Her new tattoo is a set of coordinates on her left arm just like she has for the birth places of her six children. So why does she have seven now? Does that mean she and Brad Pitt are adopting again?

According to to People, the 35-year-old actress took a U.N. goodwill trip to the Tunisa/Libya where she was seen with it. And no, the new tat has nothing to do with adoption. That's probably a good thing considering they already have six kids to take care of, right?